


sunlight was a present he had sent you

by poopemoji



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Dancing, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Anastasia (1997 & Broadway), Memory Loss, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24237802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poopemoji/pseuds/poopemoji
Summary: Glimmer doesn’t even really know what she’s trying to find. It’s only the sky, cut by the wavy horizon of an ocean, but it’s her first time seeing orange and blue meet in the middle to create this near blinding gradient, and Glimmer thinks there must be so many other colours she’s yet to see in the sky. She looks down at her hand, her skin, the tiny folds in her knuckles, bathed in this light, and she feels different.When she finds Bow with that small, natural lift to his mouth and familiar gold-plated cropped top struck by the blue-orange glow all around them, she thinks he looks a little different, too.*Glimmer is Bright Moon's lost princess. Bow is the Rebel archer who helps bring her home.
Relationships: Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 94





	sunlight was a present he had sent you

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this before s5 but then marcus nearly came for my life when he s-word zoned glimmer BUT THEN WE WON ANYWAY!!!!
> 
> big shoutout to katelyn for crying over these two with me at any given moment :') no thoughts heart full glimbow canon

_but everyone had this patina  
of slightly bruised longing, this shimmer of  
I think I knew you when we were children,  
this look of I’ve loved you ever since you were born  
and probably longer than that._

— **Paul Hostovsky**

*

Glimmer’s been out on the deck, leaning over the rails for over an hour. She knows an hour’s passed because Sea Hawk, for some stupid, puzzling reason, buzzes off like clockwork—she’s heard two different shanties now, one about the sea and one of Princess Mermista, and somehow both include burning ships.

It’s weird and bothersome, enough to almost make her want to go back to the Whispering Woods, and it’s distracting her from her musings about the open water. Glimmer doesn’t even really know what she’s trying to find. It’s only the sky, cut by the wavy horizon of an ocean, but it’s her first time seeing orange and blue meet in the middle to create this near blinding gradient, and she thinks there must be so many other colours she’s yet to see in the sky. She looks down at her hand, her skin, the tiny folds in her knuckles, bathed in this light, and she feels different.

“You know you can take a break, right?” Bow asks, coming up behind her. Glimmer hums a quick acknowledgement but keeps squinting forward, letting up on her right foot to shift onto the left. “The view’s not going anywhere.”

Which might be true enough, but also not quite, because come tomorrow, the Salineas vessel will anchor in Mystacor, and it’ll be villages, and hot springs, and forests, and magicians, is what Bow told her.

_“Sorcerers,” Bow corrected as they followed Sea Hawk to the ship they’d board for the next two nights and three days. “And sorceresses!”_

_“Right. What’s the difference, again?” Glimmer asked, hardly eager to learn._

_“Uh, sorcerers-slash-esses have_ real _magic.”_

_“That’s what magicians say, too.”_

_“Yeah, but they don’t!”_

_“Yeah?” She crossed her arms, walked just a step ahead of Bow. “How’d’ya know?”_

_“Are you— I’ve met the sorceress!”_

_“Magician.” She sing-songed._

_Bow winced._ “Please _don’t call Castaspella that to her face.”_

But the joke was undercut when just an hour into boarding, a gripping discomfort forced Glimmer to her cabin. She spent the rest of the day cooped in there because apparently, the ocean is cold and salty and kind of sticky, and it flows and rolls and wobbles. Constantly.

Today’s better, if only because Glimmer’s pissed off and tired of hurling in her room, pretending like the guard stationed outside her cabin couldn’t hear every drawn-out, wretched spewing noise. She decides to carry the bucket around with her. She hasn’t needed it yet.

“C’mon, aren’t your eyes hurting?” Bow asks again, waiting for her to turn to him; and though he’s right, like he’s been too many times on their journey so far, and it makes her want to stare harder, his waiting is soft and easy to agree with. So Glimmer turns and finds him at a respectable distance from her, a small, natural lift to his mouth and the familiar gold-plated cropped top, all struck by the blue-orange glow all around them. He looks a little different, too.

“I got you something.” Bow carries the something, a drapey-looking fabric, in his arms for only a second before he grabs it by the sleeves, pushing it forward between them. “It’s a dress!” he holds it up high enough that it covers the smile on his face so obviously carried through his tone. Glimmer lifts up the bottom and steps into the dress to peep at him through the other end.

“Uhhh, actually, it’s a tent, and you got ripped off.” Bow looks like he’s about to dispute it, but looks into the dress anyway. It makes Glimmer laugh as she inspects the puffy sleeves. “So, why am I getting a dress?”

“You don’t like it?” he frowns.

“What? No, no, I just…” she takes the dress, tries to smile down at it. She’s never really worn anything like it before, but the fairy pink is a familiar colour, and she likes that much, because she thinks it’s why he chose it. “I just… wanted to know why.” Why he got it for her, whether he’d looked for it, or if he saw it in passing and thought of her, and which of the two possibilities makes her heart stutter more.

“I mean, I just thought you should have one.” Bow replies, so truthfully and utterly like himself that something about it makes Glimmer believe she should, and for a second, makes the floor beneath her feet sway. They’re on water, she reminds herself.

“Oh.” she whispers, just as he leans in closer.

“Y’know, ‘cause you sort of got _sick_ all over your clothes yesterday.”

“Okay, we don’t have to—”

“I think the guards are starting to notice a smell—”

“Okay! Okay, _thank you._ So much.” Glimmer’s hands ball under the dress and she yanks it up to her chin, knuckles reaching to cover her burning face. Bow grins, hard enough to make his eyes squint with little happy lines, and then he laughs his laugh, letting it burst from his chest, and all Glimmer can think is _who does he think he is, teasing her like good friends?_ She glares, but it only seems to fuel the joke, so she stomps past him.

“I’m _leaving.”_

“Okay! But come back here when you’re ready!” she hears him call out, and thinks maybe she’ll take her time and let him sweat over it. When she looks back, just before the steps take the view away, Bow is still smiling eye-squintingly hard, and he stretches his arms leisurely over his head.

Glimmer descends and greets the guard outside her cabin before slipping in; she’d ask for his name yesterday, but the curiosity was soon lost for another when her eyes settled at the sharpest point of his glaive. She remembers, once, tying up one of Madame Razz’s dull kitchen knives to her broomstick while she slept in the early hours of morning, waving it around and stabbing at a nearby tree. Those days seem dream-like now, when she thinks of the quest she’s on, the answers she’s looking for, but Glimmer clings to them, these memories of Razz and her broomstick and pies, the only person she’s ever remembered clearly enough.

In her room, she thumbs the fabric properly. It’s thin, but it doesn’t have any loose hems or holes, and that’s more than she can say about anything she brought with her. The colour is cute. Maybe she could cinch it with her belt.

Glimmer reaches into her backpack for a travel-sized sewing kit and starts with the collar. Bow’s efforts are acknowledged, but it’s too high up, like it’s slowly trying to eat her head. She thinks maybe if her hair was longer, she’d use the fabric as some cute ribbon in her hair, but they’re out on the water, and it’s just her and Bow and Sea Hawk, and they’ll help her look the part when it’s time.

She pulls it over her head and clips her belt at the waist, then she fluffs her hair and tucks back the shorter strands to reveal the single pearl-drop earring dangling on her lobe. It’s not royalty, but when she looks in the mirror, she sees someone different. Feels like someone who could get some answers.

The sky’s turned a dark pink when she comes back up. They’re skirting an archipelago, and Sea Hawk’s challenging one of the guards to an arm wrestle while Bow stares intently as referee.

“Uhh,” Glimmer clears her throat, loud enough that Sea Hawk and Bow both turn their heads. The guard slams Sea Hawk’s fists down with a crack. He howls, then laughs it off, then pats the guard’s head, then lies and insists on giving away the win.

And then he bows and makes his way over, and Bow trails behind, half-turned to apologize to the guard on Sea Hawk's behalf.

“Glitter—”

_“Glimmer—”_

“You look fantastic! Absolutely radiating regality!” Sea Hawk loops a heavy arm around her shoulders and raises his hand out to the sky. “And today, you will learn to dance among your equals! Bow—”

Sea Hawk slides his arm off her and walks around Bow to give him a shove on his back, sending him toward her. Unbothered, Bow smiles.

“You dance?” Glimmer shoots him an accusatory look as he holds out his hand, palm up; she takes it—it's warm and calloused—and pulls him to step with her.

“I’ve been practising for Princess Prom.”

“Mhm.” Right. Princess Prom. Bow mentioned Princess Prom before they set sail. Super fun, super only-happens-once-every-decade, super exclusive-invite-by-princess-status-only. He went on and one about how wonderful and exciting it would be, all while she hadn't even met the minimum requirements.

“Alright,” Sea Hawk claps. “And, one-two-three, one-two— _say,_ perhaps a good old-fashioned shanty would set the mood?”

“Sea Hawk, that’s—”

He pulls himself on the rails, one hand hanging him over the ledge by a rope, the other at his chest. _“It’s one-two-three, and suddenly, I see it as a glance…”_

“You’ve got to be f—” Glimmer takes a quick short set of breaths. Princesses don't say fuck. Instead, she looks down at their feet, boring focus into them as she initiates the steps, but all she can see are her loafers, brown and worn with a hole in the sole that no one else but she can see, but still. Her hair’s probably too plain, and the dress — maybe she should’ve kept the collar, maybe royalty like their high-necks; this couldn’t possibly be what a princess wears to something as old and sacred as Princess Prom.

“Hey, Glimmer—”

_“She’s radiant, and confident, and born to take this chance…”_

“Shh.” she hisses, and she knows she’s tugging Bow along, but if she can just get these steps—

“Yeah, but, you’re kinda—”

“I said _shhhhhhhh,”_ drags out, a lot longer than it needs to, but it’s only because she can’t count her steps when everyone’s talking so loud.

“Glimmer.”

Bow halts in one quick movement, sturdy and well-balanced enough to resist Glimmer’s tunnel vision and tugging movements, to pull her back.

“Wha— Bow!” Glimmer draws her brows together, crossing her arms before she’s realized that he let her go. He looks at her, silent, and takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders back.

And then he’s just standing there. Glimmer blinks, fidgeting with restless energy and unsure of what to do, and Bow blinks back, not a clue breaking through his expression. He's not smiling, but he looks patient with his hands at his sides, with the even rise and fall of his chest. Tentatively, and without her explicit direction, Glimmer’s jaw unclenches. Her eyebrows relax. She drops her hands to her sides, and finally, she breathes in, rolls back her shoulders, out.

Bow smiles. “Better?”

_“I taught her well, I planned it all! I just forgot—”_

“Ugh, no.” Glimmer tangles her hands by her stomach. Bow reaches out to hold one.

“We’ll try it again.”

“Can you at least tell him to _shut up!”_ Glimmer says the last bit louder, but Sea Hawk’s on the far end of the deck, belting out his weird little stupid sailor heart like he has time and time before.

“Come on.” Bow raises their entwined hands in position, takes a step forward and reaches for her elbow, guiding it up until she curves her palm over his shoulder. Somewhere far away, Sea Hawk sings of romance. Bow leans in to rest his hand at her hip. “Okay, one-two-three, one-two-three…”

Glimmer listens to his voice, the way it starts strong and begins to quiet once their steps sync without clear instruction, the way his whispering sometimes catches in his throat, a little raspy. One-two-three. He steps back, she glides forward. One-two-three. They step left. One-two-three. He squeezes her hand before he lets go of her waist. One-two-three. She spins, one hand gathering her skirt, and catches the unmistakable flash of his smile.

“Thanks,” Glimmer says when she twirls back to him. It interrupts his count, but his hand still finds the warm, soft spot on her side, and they’re still swaying. She doesn’t know how polished it all looks, but it must be fine, because Bow hasn’t said otherwise—and anyway, it feels good; to trust him, to dance. Her hand is warm in his, and it feels like they’re doing it right.

“Not so hard, right?” He’s smiling at her. He almost always smiles, and he almost always smiles at her, but then he looks up and around at the sky, and something about it looks flustered, but she can’t be sure.

“Not for you, maybe,” Glimmer takes a step she’s not supposed to, a tiny one closer, not enough to completely derail their rhythm, just to return Bow’s attention back to her. “I didn’t know Rebels could dance. Thought they were too busy shooting arrows and fighting off the Horde.”

“I mean, Saturdays are nice! Well, uh, sometimes. Alternating weekends, let’s say.”

“Wow. I’m sold.” Glimmer laughs, and he holds her and laughs with her as she does, and something about this feels like a resolution, an answer. She’d been struck with nerves a few minutes ago, and now she wonders if she knows how to stop moving with him to a one-two-three count.

“Perfect. All we gotta do is ace this dance,” he squints at her a little, titling his head to the side, “maybe find that missing earring of yours, and then you’ll be Princess Prom ready in no time!” He brings his hand, the one cradling hers, to the side of her head, and she feels his index finger move off her knuckle to flick the pearl on her ear. Glimmer nods, a small, quick motion, and it’s all she can do not to lose the breath in her lungs as his hand lingers at her neck.

“Hm,” she breathes, deliberate and slow, trying not to give herself away. “Well, I mean, I don’t know if we’ll have time for that. Y’know, between all the arrow shooting and Horde butt kicking and Princess Prom-ing.”

And though she was going for casual, Bow smiles at her earnestly. “We’ll make time. It’s important to you.” he raises his hand again. Glimmer spins under.

“And that makes it important to you?”

“Of course.”

When he brings her back, his hand skirts over his spot at her hip and reaches over to the small of her back. Glimmer lets her arm relax, moving its place from his shoulder to the heart on his chest plate, and she thinks she hears him breathe, a quick, soft release. When she tilts her head, she finds him looking at her like he had weeks ago—at first glance under the peaking sunlight in Bright Moon’s ruined palace—like he’s just learned something.

“I’m,” she starts, but her mouth feels cottony now, “I think I’m, um, a little— dizzy.”

“Yeah,” Bow mumbles, slowing their steps to a gentle stop. “Me too.”

Glimmer still feels like they’re swaying, still making their steps known over every inch of this deck. Their hands still hold one another, even as Bow lowers them to the side.

“We should probably stop spinning.” he doesn’t quite look at her, but a fraction lower, and Glimmer can’t help but allow herself the same, looking to his mouth—he has the tiniest little scar at the corner of his lip—when she replies.

“We have stopped.”

He doesn't bother to fact check this, all his attention focused across what little space lives between them. Instead, all he does is whisper her name, the softest “Glimmer,” she thinks she's ever heard. Every second hangs between them like a question. “I…”

And Glimmer wants to answer, and by that she means wants to kiss him, and there’s no other way to say it but like this: she leans in, lets one hand slide up the chest plate to reach for his face and the other to brush over his knuckles. She watches his eyes, fluttering, and lets her own shut softly.

It never comes. She feels it, not a kiss, but something else, sudden and cold and vacant.

Her eyes open to find Bow looking down at her like she’s somehow not within his reach, holding his hand and wanting what she thought he wanted just as much.

“Sorry, I—” he takes a step back and lifts her hand to give it a little pat. “That was good. You… you’re a quick learner.” Glimmer blinks, and he pulls his hand back while hers suspends, confused and alone in the air for just a second before falling to her side.

“You’re gonna do great,” Bow repeats, like it’s supposed to mean something, or maybe it means absolutely nothing, and that’s the point.

She lingers, feeling stubborn and silly, watching Bow for a sign; a hand to draw her back, a smile to ease her nerves. The longer she waits, the more her gut twists into a large, heavy object, and she opens her mouth, though she doesn’t know what she’ll say.

“It’s getting late,” Bow speaks up, and her heart twists. Her hands tangle at her stomach again. “Do you, uh— I can walk you back to your cabin.”

“No,” she hears from herself. “No, it’s, it’s all good. I’m…” Her head shakes, the little pearl smacking softly against the skin behind her ear. “I’m gonna look at the water some more, or,” her hand comes up in some floppy, vague gesture, “whatever. But… thanks.”

“Okay,” Bow murmurs, and Glimmer swears she catches a wounded look on his face, something in the eyes, but he steps around and past her before she can do anything about it. She stays where she is, listening to Bow’s footsteps recede. This time, she doesn’t turn back to see Bow do just that.

*

At the foot of Micah’s statue in a shadowy Hall of Sorcerer's, Bow finds Glimmer on the floor and holds her tight. He lets her fist the fabric of his nightshirt. He lets her cry into his chest, and he tries to breathe through his nose when his chest hurts too much to stop grinding his teeth.

“I can’t stay here,” is the first thing she manages to say since he pulled her away from a dreamy trance. It was like she’d hardly recognized him at first, screaming and throwing punches when he stopped her. He feels as small as her, confused and impossibly scared when she tells him, shaking, “I just— I kept seeing things here. Faces, and—and shadows.”

Bow pulls her tighter, able to do nothing more.

“I’m sorry, I’m here,” he whispers in her hair and rubs his hand over her arm, feeling it warm slowly; it’s just as much a comfort to him as he rethinks every decision to come here, whether or not Mystacor is truly safe, and whether he needs one of the princesses, or even Adora, to help Glimmer with what he can’t.

In his arms, she trembles. “I shouldn’t,” she sniffles, “I shouldn’t be here. Nothing’s happening. I don’t have powers, I haven’t connected to the Moon Stone, and I’m just wasting everyone’s time, and, and—” She shuts her mouth to bite back on what it was she wanted to say.

“You’re not wasting anyone’s time, Glimmer.” Bow feels her hands flat against his chest. He lets her push him off and watches her adjust herself against the base of the statue, hugging her knees.

“I am! I’m not here to just— sit around the Moon Stone and wait.” she gulps, her nails digging into the skin by her elbows. “I’m supposed to prove I’m a princess and hone my powers, or whatever. I was supposed to get answers.”

“You will.”

“But I haven’t!” She cries, and then winces, eyes darting up to the ceiling where her voice carries. “All I’ve done since I got here is waste Castaspella’s time and embarrass myself and make you and Sea Hawk look stupid, and—and apparently, I meditate _wrong!_ Ugh!” She swipes at her nose with the back of her hand, a reckless movement and one that reaches well past her wrist to her forearm, and she groans, exhausted and frustrated with herself. Everything in Bow’s body insists he reach over to cup her cheek; let his thumb follow her cheekbone, let the pearl on her ear knock gently against his finger.

Instead, he reaches to touch her hand, and he runs his thumb along each knuckle, counting them in his head, watching the grip on her arm relax, watching her watch his hand until she lets him cradle it.

“You’re okay now,” he whispers, “everyone gets nightmares.”

But Glimmer shakes her head. “No, it’s,” she breathes, a wet, shaking sound, “it’s like I know them. I don’t know their faces, or—or their names, but they know me, and I just… I know they’re with me, and I can never…” She shuts her eyes tight. “There’s always screaming, I always hear it echo, and—and lightning, and it’s always red, and it just…”

Bow’s hands squeeze hers, like he’s trying to promise her something, although he’s not sure what it could be. All he can think is that this is how it is, now. He’d make promise after promise for her.

“This was a mistake,” Glimmer says, her other arm keeping her legs drawn to herself. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“Well,” Bow smiles softly and clears his throat, but the level in his voice is betrayed by his fingertips, skirting her wrist, keeping her close. “It’s not like you can leave right now, right?”

Glimmer snorts, wiping her nose again. “Beats going back to sleep.” She tilts her head back until she’s staring at the ceiling, and she makes a face, something uncomfortable and sad. “This… this is King Micah, right?”

Bow looks up; from their place on the floor, he catches the faintest twinkle in a pair of stone hands, moonlight playing off the crest’s gem centre. Castaspella had left no subtleties about her brother—what it would mean to a daughter of his—the first night they arrived, and now, Bow wonders if it means anything, that they stopped here, the same wonder he felt meeting Glimmer in the ruins of a lost princess’ castle..

When he looks back at Glimmer, she’s still staring up with a glazed look across her face. She bites her lip before she opens her mouth to ask, “Did… did you ever meet him?”

“I— no. I was still just a kid when… you know,” Bow mumbles off, but before he lets himself think of it, he adds, “I saw him, though, once.” He’s struck by a memory. It’s one he hasn’t thought of in a while now, dulled by the wear of time, but he scrunches his face in a look of concentration, grasping at what he can, what must be worth remembering.

Glimmer head falls, and with it, a strand of her hair, covering part of an eyebrow that rises in curiosity. It’s all very disheveled, and Bow knows that it’s because it's late and they’re both tired, but all his brain can offer up in the face of Glimmer is that she looks beautiful; and while he won’t tell her this, he won’t beat himself up for thinking it, for sharing this memory with her if he could keep her attention.

He looks down at Glimmer’s hand, small in his. “It was June. I think I was ten? I snuck out, so I had to be young. I knew my dads would be upset if they found out, but—there was this parade in Bright Moon, okay, and _everyone_ was invited. There were thousands of people, and King Micah was with Queen Angella at the highest point. And… and there was this girl.”

It comes out as a breath, and he doesn’t realize just how much closer Glimmer’s gotten until he sees her legs stretch against the floor, next to his knee.

“And… yeah, this girl, she was probably my age but—but just looking at her, you could tell… she was gonna be queen. I couldn’t stop staring,” he laughs to himself, and he thinks he hears Glimmer laugh too. When he peaks up from his eye lashes, he sees her look back at him like no one ever has. “And everyone was cheering, and I guess that’s all we had to do, but… the float was still moving, and, I don’t know why, but I... I started running after her. I wanted to follow her so badly, so I pushed through everyone until I got to the front.”

“And?” Glimmer whispers; she's not very good at it, Bow learned early on, her voice always cracks a little. She’s holding his hands with both of hers now, and the warmth of it feels familiar to him, almost rivalling the heat on the very day.

“And… I found her, but I guess what was so great about the day was... was that she saw _me._ Everyone was looking at her, and she found me in that crowd, and… she smiled.”

He remembers, so clear and sudden, the way he walked back home, hours after, feeling like he could brave anything. He remembers shooting his arrows for hours, releasing each one with confidence, even if it didn’t quite hit the mark.

He looks at Glimmer, “hey,” and lifts his brow. “Maybe you were there.”

“What?” Glimmer snatches her hands away, crossing them over her chest like she's been burned. Something about what he says brings a flush to her face, but he’s not sure why. “Shut up."

"What?"

"Uh, did you miss the whole, _I have no memories, I have no past_ thing I mentioned?” Her voice is sardonic enough without the eye-roll, but her shoulders sulk again.

“Come ooooon,” Bow knocks her knee with the back of his hand, smiling. “There were thousands of people! The chances are pretty good.”

“Yeah, but,” Glimmer huffs but goes silent, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“What’s the harm, hm?” Bow leans back on his palms. “Make it part of your story.”

She’s looking at him again, with some expression that Bow can’t name, but she looks soft under the moonlight streaming through the window, almost entirely pink. She looks at him like he’s something soft, too. Then, she breathes in and out.

“Okay. Okay, um, a… parade.” Glimmer starts softly. Bow offers her a quick thumbs up. ”There was a parade, and it was, uh, cloudy?”

He coughs, shaking his head quickly.

“I mean sunny! Sunny, ‘cause, June, obviously. But, anyway, I was there with… with my family, and— and my feet were hurting, and I was a little hot, and..." She clears her throat. "And all I wanted was to play with the other kids, ‘cause it was my birthday, but there were too many people.”

“Thousands.”

“That’s way too many,” Glimmer laughs, and nudges his thigh with her foot. “But _finally,_ there was someone— this boy. One boy out of thousands.”

“He must’ve been special.”

“He was kinda weird, actually. I mean, who brings their bow and arrows to a parade?” Glimmer’s face wrestles against a smile, but Bow does nothing to hide his. That’s how it is, now. He doesn’t think he could hide a thing from her. “And… he was looking at me, and you should’ve seen how he dodged between all the guards. He wouldn’t stop until he saw me, and he started screaming,” she cups her hands around her mouth, “princess! Princess, you’re so cool—”

“I don’t think that’s exa—”

“No, no, it was. I was there, remember.” Her hands return to her lap and she’s grinning, waiting for him to stop looking so unimpressed. Bow thinks, of all the ways he’s seen and liked Glimmer, he likes her this way the best. On the floor with him, telling jokes in close proximity. She’s smiling.

It must melt away the irritation he faked, because Glimmer continues. “But, yeah… I saw him. I heard him call me and I saw him smile, and I didn’t wanna get him in trouble, but… I smiled back, and… and then…”

Bow watches before his eyes as each second shaves off part of her smile until it’s nothing more than the thin line of her mouth. She stares at him, and again, it tells him almost nothing except this time when she breathes, it gets stuck, and she brings a loose fist to her chest. He’s not sure what it is, a trick of the light or his own cocktail of exhaustion and rising concern that form pearlescent wisps around her.

“He bowed.”

Bow catches his breath. He stares back, eyes wide, looking over her face for something, anything that could explain this. Because he bowed, he did. He remembers reaching her without knowing what he’d do, his mouth open with nothing to say. So he bowed, because she was a princess and because he forgot what he’d wanted to tell her.

And when Bow looked up again, she smiled at him.

“I,” he gulps, pushing off his palms, sitting straight, and Glimmer does the same, legs scrambling to sit tall and focused. “Glimmer, how do you know that? How— I, I didn’t tell you that.”

“I know! I know, I…”

Behind him, the towering trees cast shadows into the hall, but none of the branches cast over her face. At Glimmer’s chest, where her hands tangle together, she’s glowing in a colour that reminds Bow of only her.

“Glimmer,” he whispers. Their hands meet somewhere in the middle, both reaching out. Her hands flood his own with shimmering, pink light. Bow doesn’t know what to think, except for one thing: he likes her best this way. She’s smiling, small and tentative, like she could cry.

And she whispers, squeezing his hands, “I remember.”


End file.
